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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24019552">It was like you were holding the world when you held her</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescruffynerfherder/pseuds/thescruffynerfherder'>thescruffynerfherder</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hadestown - Mitchell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Baby Fic, F/M, Fluff, Hades being soft, I wrote this fic because I couldn't stop thinking about Hades holding a baby sue me, Persephone reminiscing on the past, Post-Canon, just so much fluff, mention of miscarriage, only a little angst because its them</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:27:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,221</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24019552</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescruffynerfherder/pseuds/thescruffynerfherder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Persephone reflects on the past while looking at her future</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hades/Persephone (Hadestown)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>50</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>It was like you were holding the world when you held her</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Wrote this in 20 Minutes to finally get it out of my system.<br/>All the mistakes are mine.<br/>I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was dark outside the window, the forges and refineries dimmed down for the underworld slept at night nowadays. Still the dim glow of the distant factories softly illuminated the big master bedroom in which the king and his queen resided.</p>
<p>He held her in his arms, she was asleep and had been for the better part of the exhausting day that lay behind her. Hades couldn’t tear his eyes away from her, he could feel her even heartbeat against his chest and her soft breath made the hair on his arm stand up. So so soft, so precious he had been staring at her for a while now, too nervous to sleep himself. His own heart aflame with love.</p>
<p>“Lover, come to bed.” a tired voice spoke from the bed behind him. He ever so slowly turned around facing his exhausted but smiling wife. Her smile only grew bigger when she saw the usually imposing king of the underworld cradling their impossibly small daughter in his strong arms. He had ditched his pinstripe three-piece and his shirt hours ago. Now only in his black undershirt and soft lounge pants, she could see the brick tattoo covering his left arm and winding around the left side of his chest and back, it had changed in recent years.<br/>
Four cycles since the poet came down to free his songbird and brought with him memories of an ancient song, three cycles since the wall came down and they tried again.</p>
<p><br/>
Strong vines now wound around the bricks on her lover’s arm, the occasional shape of a carnation visible over the bricks. The wall not forgotten but repurposed, reclaimed by nature, by her. The tattoo on his other arm may be a bit less poetic. Her name was written around his biceps curled around him like her hand, also a relic from a time long past. A tacky thing really but he was so excited when he showed it to her the first time he picked her up at summers end, and his excitement about it alone made her love the ink.<br/>
A new name now resided below hers, Melinoe.<br/>
Persephone was snapped out of her thoughts when she heard her husbands deep rumbling chuckle, their tiny daughter still asleep in her lover’s strong arms held on tight to the big index finger that had been caressing her soft cheek. Not even a day old and Melinoe had already managed to reduce the mighty king who sat upon the chromium throne to a nervous and overjoyed puddle of a new dad.</p>
<p>“Come lover, you need sleep and she’ll still be there waiting for us tomorrow.”<br/>
For the first time since she woke up her lover’s eyes, the one their daughter was sure to inherit, left the babe and found her. It was hard for him, to put her down, their miracle child.<br/>
What felt like centuries ago, and probably was, when they were still younger no neon lights, no factories and less strain from their six-month arrangement. They went through the pain of losing life before, three miscarriages had strained their marriage, both blaming themselves for them. She the goddess of life unable to bear life herself, and he the god of the dead only able to father death. The last time they purposely tried to have a child it left the biggest rift, it left her broken mentally as well as physically. Her husband broken as he already was from the loss of another child couldn’t bear the thought of losing her as well, it was truly the beginning of their endless fighting.</p>
<p><br/>
He closed himself off, buried himself in his work and she sought the comfort he used to provide in alcohol and various narcotics. It only served to drive them apart further and further, drove them apart until a poet came with a song.<br/>
A song that was now quietly being hummed to their daughter.<br/>
Her husband looked up at her again a gentle smile on his face as he laid their daughter in the crib on her side next to their bed. He placed a feather-light kiss on her soft head and stroke her forehead again before climbing into the bed behind her. She instinctively shuffled closer to him, her back to his chest, his arms around her front and under her head, holding her tight, hand in hand, eyes on the crib they knew their daughter was safely asleep in.</p>
<p>She felt his voice before she heard it, deep in his chest.<br/>
“Thank You Lover.”<br/>
it was softly spoken into her messy curls.</p>
<p>She couldn’t keep the smile out of her voice<br/>
“Isn’t all my credit, you know it took two of us to make her.”</p>
<p>She heard a soft chuckle and his arms tightened around her, he squeezed her hand and his voice came back startlingly sober.</p>
<p>“Thank You Seph, for everything. For trying again, for making me a father, for being her mother, for having pity on my heart in your mother’s garden all those years ago.”</p>
<p>She turned her head a little and gave him a soft kiss on his lips. Her man such a big softie. She slowly pulled away again a tired smiled on her face.</p>
<p>“I love you Hades. I love you so much, never doubt that.”</p>
<p>She could feel his smile against the back of her neck as he whispered the words back to her against her skin.<br/>
His breath evened out and he was asleep moments later exhaustion finally claiming him after a day that she thought might have been more stressful for him then it had been for her. She smiled to herself, her poor panicky husband.</p>
<p><br/>
She could hear a train whistle far off in the distance, her ears trained after centuries of anticipating, loathing and longing for that sound. Luckily there would be no more of that for her, her mother had finally agreed to ease up on their custody agreement after seeing her grandchild and seeing the new father holding her. Demeter was possessive of her daughter but she knew that her girl, now a mother herself, couldn’t be torn away from her husband any longer without causing her and little Melinoe immense pain. Oh she had always been capable of bringing on spring on her own she was just too stubborn to do it, but the same stubbornness resided in her daughter when it came to the necessary end of the custody agreement. So Demeter relented knowing she couldn’t win this battle. She still demanded frequent visits up top, something Persephone was more than willing to deliver, she loved her momma after all and wants her daughter to be familiar with her and the upper world in general.</p>
<p>Persephone could feel the exhaustion of the past day coming back to her. She snuggled closer to her husband who reflexively held her just a little tighter against his chest. She was happy, between the two people she loved most in the universe, finally free to be with her husband for eternity.<br/>
She fell asleep and maybe it was the exhaustion from the last 24 hours that led her to sleep calmly for the first time in a very long time but maybe it was the peace of mind that she finally had that played the bigger part.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>English is not my first language but I hope that wasn't too noticeable!<br/>Side note: In this house we don't stan Zeus and Hades is Melonie's dad</p></blockquote></div></div>
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